I found the DMG immensely helpful; I'm one of a few almost *self-made RPG fans in this day and age and there's a lot I don't know that is generally assumed to be known.

* Not exagerrating here. I found role-playing games on the internet, recognized it as something I'd found interesting as a kid from when I'd seen part of a session, researched it, bought the 3.5 D&D handbooks and argued some friends on a forum to start an openrpg D&D game which lasted a year and a half. I also tried DM'ing, which failed miserably.

If I'd had this convienient advice then in a readily-accessable format, I'd probably have failed unmiserably.

Well, I can see where your argument is coming from Thenodrin, and I think you do have a valid point, but I think WotC is trying to get WoW (and other MMORPG) players, teens and adults who have never played an honest-to-gawd RPG before and people who haven't dusted off their 1st Ed. rules since the late 70's/early 80's to give the game a try.I think it's really cool that they are basically trying to mainstream D&D for a new era of gamers, thereby wiping away some of the stigma attached to gaming in general and D&D in particular.

Think of it as WotC's version of Nintendo's Wii. Hardcore console and PC gamers generally scoff at the Wii's controllers, but I know people who's Grandma's have given the Wii a try when they wouldn't be caught dead playing a Playstation 3 game.

I don't mind that WotC is trying to market to an untapped audience. What I do mind is that since they aren't continuing to support True 20, 3.5 and their other older systems (something I believe that they are easily large enough to do) that they are giving the impression that their traditional market isn't worth keeping.

That is a kick in the junk, right below the groceries.

A Zen Koan:A Master said unto his Student,"I Own you, Bitch. Know this."And the Student was Owned,And Knew it.

Given that they will shortly be unable to make money on 3.5...Granted, what I know of the book-market comes from fiction, but basically, after about three months, a books' market value drops to about 10%. Add that to 3.5 being 'obselete'...

Certain settings will get ported over, but again, market forces. Book net profit margins are thin.

I meant 'obselete' as in 'No longer profitable enough to support'. That's why I put it in quotes. WotC is a business and the money-part is handled by 'suits' - Same as almost all the other businesses that are more than three stores, as I understand it.

Please refer to the part on net profit on books. I paid about $5 markup on my PHB. Each writer will probably see about 10c of that, is my understanding.

Also, I don't know what 'junk-kickery' is, although if it refers to getting kicked in the junk...I'm sorry, but there's no such thing as 'artistic-only' professional-quality work.

I can refer you to a series of articles by the published and well-known author Eric Flint on why this is true, if you give me some time...And he's a socialist. Right down to being an activist.

So by obsolete what you are saying is that all the other companies that are going to continue to produce supplements for 3.5 aren't going to make any money?That seems highly unlikely, since a number of companies were birthed because of the Open Gaming Licence, and are prospering.

"Artistic-only" professional work as related to junk-kickery. I have no idea how you made that connection, so you're going to have to clarify. I don't know where you are going making an argument about artistic vs. professional work and WotC's marketing strategy.

What I said was that WotC refusing to continue to support 3.5 can be (and is being) viewed as them turning their backs on their loyal customers, especially after the relatively rapid switch from 3.0 to 3.5. It strikes everyone as a money grab, rather than an attempt to "broaden the appeal of D&D". There is a difference between a company making money and a company making a money grab, and I can clarify what I mean by that if needed.

I have no issue with them coming out with a new system and calling it D&D 4e, but for them to completely discard 3.5 is insulting given the difference in style, target audience and focus between 3.5 and 4.0. My stance is that WotC is acting like that kid in high school who one day decides that her best friend from kindergarden isn't cool anymore, so she dumps him and tries to make friends with the "cool kids", in this case the mainstream WoW and MMO players who don't play other types of RPGs. It's bush-league.

I'm not talking about making money. I'm talking about alienating the customers you do have to try to get the customers you don't have, and WotC is going about it in an especially egregious manner.

None of this would be a problem if they kept supporting 3.5 until 4e was firmly established, slowly phasing out 3.5 as they went.

A Zen Koan:A Master said unto his Student,"I Own you, Bitch. Know this."And the Student was Owned,And Knew it.

But money rules business descisions - And yelling at the poor peon suits at the bottom about it, when the real descision was made somewhere up in Hasbro...

I like the people at WotC, even if it's only from staff blogs. They don't sound arrogant, or like they hate the hobby - And one of them explicitly commented that two types of people work at WotC - Artists and suits. And that the former are not in charge.

In short - It's like complaining to a bank teller. They aren't the source of your banking problems. They're just another poor working stiff. Complain at the bank manager - They *May* be able to do something.

I'm not saying that I hate the specific guys who wrote D&D 4e, as I am sure they are cool dudes and ladies for the most part. I am saying that no one at WotC made a good enough argument to Hasbro to keep 3.5 in the loop until 4e was firmly established. They can only cry "OMG we iz powerless arteest-types who know nothing about business and keep getting crushed by Da MAN!" so much. The higher ups at WotC should have been able to put together some type of presentation that would have made that case. Surely there has to be someone at WotC that can work PowerPoint and can speak Suit.

Ultimately it comes down to one thing. Fucking George Lucas. First he ruins Star Wars, and now he's ruining D&D. DAMN HIM TO HELL!

A Zen Koan:A Master said unto his Student,"I Own you, Bitch. Know this."And the Student was Owned,And Knew it.

I guess I'm showing my age in that it never occurred to me that people would come across rpg or D&D on the internet and go looking for it.

I do know that the cross over market from MMORPGs is not as big as WotC thinks it is. It is a fine line between the two, but upon that line is a privacy fence almost identical to the one built between the rpg-ers and the larp-ers. Say that role playing is like a Vampire LARP at Gen Con and you'll get yelled at or lynched. Say that WOW is like an online version of D&D at E3 and your corpse will get yelled at.

As far as the 3.5 / 4E market share, I do think that WotC really shot themselves in the foot on this. Other companies were advertizing 3.5 for them. If you wanted to play Arcanis, Blackmoor, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Fellowship of the White Star, etc. you had to get the WotC PHB, DMG, and MM. From what I heard at Origins, none of these campaigns is going to convert to 4E. Arcanis is (likely) going to their in-house system currently in use in Witch Hunter. Kalamar is (likely) going to the Hackmaster system. And most others are planning to stay 3.5.

Which means that since WotC is no longer producing 3.5 books, that new players in those campaigns will be forced to hunt down the books on the secondary market. The very one that Narf mentions. I expect that by the end of the year the 3.5 books will be going for more than cover value because people are dumping them off now for half-cover or less, and there will be a demand for it later.

I was an exhibitor at Origins last weekend and the booth next to ours was a local retail store. I literally lost count of the number of people who asked him for 3.5 rule books. If people are seeking them out now, imagine who will be looking for them six to twelve months from now.

I completely agree with Thunder that WotC's best move would have been to keep both books in print. However, WotC really wants their 4E license, the GSL, to go into use. Unfortunately, there are at least three main difference between the GSL and the OGL that I think will prevent most companies from using it.

The OGL was based on the Open Software License that Microsoft has. Basically, just like Blizzard can make a Windows Vista game without paying Microsoft, we could make a D&D game without paying WotC. From what I've heard the Hasbro legal team isn't willing to challenge the Microsoft legal team in an attempt to withdraw the OGL ... yet.

The GSL is less based on software copyright and more on print copyright law. Keeping in mind that I've only had time to read through about half of the License, the three points that I've found that the GSL differs from the OGL are.

1. There may be a fee for its use.2. WotC gets "quality control" veto power. Which means, from a pessimistic point of view, that if you produce a game that sells better than theirs (like, say, Arcanis over Eberon), they can veto its publication. From an optimistic point of view, WotC can prevent products that are of questionable ethics, like the D&D porno game that came out a few years ago. Guess which way the industry seems to be thinking?3. The License seems to boil down to allowing the licensed company to *NOT* violate WotC's trademarks or copyrights. So far, in my reading, the license allows a company to refer to a D&D book by section and page number, but not reproduce the text. That is already allowed under Fair Use, so the license effectively grants nothing to the licensed company.

I think that the GSL was developed because gamers who don't know copyright law and who don't know marketing decided that allowing other companies to produce product that supported WotC's book was somehow bad business. That Paradigm releasing "City of Secrets" somehow ate into WotC's sales of Monster Manual IV. But, I expect that the real end result will be that there will be a group of people who are playing D&D 4 put out by WotC, and an industry of people who are playing d20 campaigns put out by multiple companies.

D&D 4 might aspire to be as big as Shadowrun 2 and 3 used to be (which, granted, is pretty big), but I don't think it'll ever be an industry leader like Dungeons & Dragons has always been, because there have always been other companies producing D&D and AD&D suplemental material (off the top of my head, the Role Aids and pamphlet-modules from 1st and 2nd edition but I know there were others), thereby giving the players the widest variety of play while focusing on one set of rules.

Thenodrin wrote:I do know that the cross over market from MMORPGs is not as big as WotC thinks it is. It is a fine line between the two, but upon that line is a privacy fence almost identical to the one built between the rpg-ers and the larp-ers. Say that role playing is like a Vampire LARP at Gen Con and you'll get yelled at or lynched. Say that WOW is like an online version of D&D at E3 and your corpse will get yelled at.

It seems to me that one of the Suits at either Hasbro or WotC saw how much money Blizzard is raking in from WoW and thought that it would be natural for those players to jump at an edition of D&D that has a similar feel to the MMORPG that they are shelling out their cash for now.

I've always found the style feuds astonishing. I LARP and play tabletop RPGs. I play different CCGs and MMORPGS. I dabble lightly with minis games and wargames and boardgames. I don't really understand the RPGer/LARPer feud or the CCGer/mini-gamer feud. To me it's all RPGs. Maybe it's because Saskatoon is a bit unique in that we ALL both LARP, tabletop, CCG, Mini-game or wargame in some combination, so our only real feud is the munchkins (or mechanics) vs the characterizers (or theatre-types).

I'm getting kind of worried I'll get into a fist fight at GenCon this year when I sit down at an RPG demo in my LARP costume or accidentally drop my dice pouch at a LARP and someone starts talking shit. Theno! Will you get my back as a brother Weregeek reader?

A Zen Koan:A Master said unto his Student,"I Own you, Bitch. Know this."And the Student was Owned,And Knew it.

Well, coming up on my 19th year of DnDing, It is not the system that is the problem. It is the complete exclusion of what makes DnD, DnD. The freaking dragons.

The change in the traditional adventuring party I found in imagry to be very cool. Going from the complete lack of uniformity in a traditional dnd group. I mean imagine it, if you saw what makes up a standard party, they would be quite comical. Visually, the new system of races and classes allows for the group to visualize a darker, and deeper story.

The problem is that when you say DnD to somebody with nothing but casual knowledge but never played visualizes epic battles of dragons and heroes, plain and simple. Now, with no rules in regards to the metallics, I find that a "kick in the balls" I never use expansion books just for the fact that I want a story, not a bloody number crunch. So there will be kids, who decide to get together and try out DnD. Pick up their first books, imagining grand adventures. They do not have the experience to abstract on the book, and they will wonder where this stuff is that they have thought about, the game will go stale and fall from their interest. Like a sub par movie/tv show.

one lvl barbarian, rest lvl wizard. Str 20, int 18. Spell book in one hand, greataxe in other.I mean really? Is there a better half orc?

Thunderhowl wrote:I've always found the style feuds astonishing. I LARP and play tabletop RPGs. I play different CCGs and MMORPGS. I dabble lightly with minis games and wargames and boardgames. I don't really understand the RPGer/LARPer feud or the CCGer/mini-gamer feud. To me it's all RPGs. Maybe it's because Saskatoon is a bit unique in that we ALL both LARP, tabletop, CCG, Mini-game or wargame in some combination, so our only real feud is the munchkins (or mechanics) vs the characterizers (or theatre-types).

I've never completely understood the feuds, either, but I recognize them. And, they aren't restricted to rpg-related dividing lines. Civil War tour guides will spit and curse at the idea of being grouped with Civil War reinactors. Mountain climbers and cliff scalers have plenty of negative comments to say about the other activity and the people who participate in it. The Trekkie vs. Trekker wars are another prime example.

Thunderhowl wrote:I'm getting kind of worried I'll get into a fist fight at GenCon this year when I sit down at an RPG demo in my LARP costume or accidentally drop my dice pouch at a LARP and someone starts talking shit. Theno! Will you get my back as a brother Weregeek reader?

The funny thing (to me) about the feud is that there are enough rpg-ers who game in costume that it is really difficult to notice the different groups until they start talking terminology. For example, rpg-ers tend to call away from the table large group role playing "Interactives" specifically so as not to be confused with LARP, even though they are effectively the exact same thing.

Gen Con went through a phase about 3 years ago where they actively discouraged "Interactives" by lumping them together with the LARPs, which is why Origins runs so many of them (two Arcanis, one Witch Hunter, two or three Cthulhu, etc.) every year. But, if you were going to Gen Con back when it was in Milwaukee, the Living City and Living Death Interactives would often dominate a corner of the Arena gaming hall.

To bring this back on topic, I do think that the D&D 4 game is diluted to where non-geeks can play and understand it. But, with over 20 years of being the definitive fringer-geek activity, I'm just not sure there is an audience for it. On the other hand, Star Trek finally made the jump a few years ago from being a geek interest to being mainstream. Maybe WotC thinks that this move will help D&D make the jump as well.

And, if I get to go to Gen Con (I won't know until Aug 15th if I'll be healthy enough to travel) I'd be glad to hook up with a fellow WereGeek fan.

Narf the Mouse wrote:Wasn't OD&D simple enough for anyone to pick up and play?

I'm not sure if you mean Original D&D, or if that is a typo of AD&D, but part of the answer is pretty much the same.

1st and 2nd editions of D&D were apparantly designed with the philosophy that all dice are random. Depending on the reason for rolling the dice, you might need a high number, a low number, or a middle number. For example, when attacking the idea was to roll equal to or higher than the THAC0 and then compare that to the AC of the target. But, if you were rolling an ability check you needed to roll as close to the number without going over. And, if you were rolling a system shock or any thief ability, you needed to roll under the number. (An obscure rule in the AD&D 2.5 Monstrous Manual stated that certain monsters could only be struck on an attack roll of 1, but most DMs and even many TSR employees didn't even know of the rule much less enforce it.)

A new player could easilly and often get frustrated and confused.

3rd edition sought to simplify this by simply declaring high numbers to always be good. This was stated as a goal by the 3rd edition design team at Gen Con 2000.

And, again, I'm coming back to the fact that most people who learned 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd edition D&D learned by joining a pre-existing group, sitting with people already familiar with the game and learning from experience. 4th has a really steep learning curve (there is no "easy" character class like a 1st ed cleric, a 2nd ed thief, or a 3rd ed fighter), and is a huge industry step backwards.

The rest of the table top role playing industry has moved to skill based systems. Third and 3.5 D&D were almost skill based, maintaining just enough class importance to remain recognizable as D&D. Fourth has, basically, released an archiac 70s / 80s style rpg system. Yes, it is "easier" in the fact that there are fewer options. Just as there are really only three to six different types of warlock in WoW, there are really only three to six different types of warlock in D&D 4E. Simple, but very restrictive.

I am beginning to question that 4E is something that can be picked up and played. In 3.5 there were a lot of options for beginning characters and so some campaigns (Arcanis and White Star just to name a few) allowed free rebuilds up to a certain level. That way if you had a first level fighter who took Power Attack and didn't realize that it really didn't help until higher levels unless you wanted it to unlock other feats, you could go back and change it. Or, if you found that the higher dex really wasn't as useful to your particular character concept as a higher INT combined with Combat Expertise, then you could change it. In 4E there aren't as many options, but they are all somewhat confusing options in that you have to decide each and every round what to do, whereas low level PCs in 3.5 could swing their sword and move on, learning the different available options as the game progressed.

4E might be easier in total. But, I think it has a steeper learning curve in that there are no beginning classes. In 3.5 it was fairly easy to take a Fighter or Rogue and play it. Intermediate classes included Barbarian, Druid, Paladin and Sorcerer. Advanced classes were Bard, Cleric, Monk and Wizard. In 4E, all classes are equally easy, but that also means that all classes are equally hard.

My opinion might change after playing 4E for a while, but at current I'd much rather teach a new player 3.5 by giving them a fighter or rogue and letting them learn as we play than teach a new player 4E.

In every previous edition of D&D a new player could be given an "easy" character concept and they can learn the game as they play. This is no longer effective. Handing a new player a wizard or a fighter or a warlord are all just as difficult. And, if he doesn't have all of the information he needs (ie, his own book), then he doesn't fully understand his options.

The level of complication in 4E is comparable to the scenario, "What if a group of new ShadowRun players all decided to be deckers because they were all fans of the Matrix?"

And, other players can't help you find information as easily as in previous editions. If you are the guy without a book and it is your turn and you ask, "What does Fiery Bolt do?" the other players need to know: Is this a wizard, warlock, or other power? What level power is this? Which pact do you have? In 3.5 if you were the guy without a book and asked, "What does Mounted Combat do?" (you'd be surprised how many people, players and DMs, I meet at conventions who don't know what this feat does) then a quick flip of the pages reveals the text.

I will grant that the concept of "I roll a die and get a big number = yay" is simpler than "I roll a die, what happens?" I will grant that the concept of "I get to choose two of these five" is simpler than "I get to choose one of a nigh unlimited number." I'll even grant that the concept of "I'm rolling against your reflex defense" is simpler than "Make a reflex save." However, I think that the concept of "I'm rolling either my strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, or charisma against either your AC, fortitude, reflex, or will defense and I get to decide differently every round" is far, far more complex than "I rolled a 17, does that hit his AC?"

I also think that the idea of every roll being 1d20+ 1/2 lvl is destined to break at higher levels. That +5 for being skilled is going to matter less and less the higher level you are. The difference between adding str to make a basic attack with a dagger or adding intelligence to cast Fireball is negligible once you are high enough level to cast it. For example: I have a 7th level wizard with a 20 INT and an Orb +2, casting a Fireball at +10. But, if I attack with my Flaming Dagger +2 with my Str 12 and combat advantage because the reason I'm in melee is to provide a flank to the rogue, I get a +8. An insignificant difference.

And, this counters against the 3.5 ruleset where you could decide that you want your character to be good at a few things and perfect at this other thing. Maybe you want your wizard to be the world's best spellcaster, or your fighter to be the best archer, or your bard to be the best diplomat, your rogue to be the best con man, your rogue to be the best sneak, your rogue to be the best assassin, etc. You could sacrifice your effectiveness in other areas to focus on the trait that interested you. You really can't do that in 4E (so far as I've seen.) Your wizard knows just as much about the arcane as any other wizard. Your rogue is just as sneaky as any other rogue of the same level. And, just as bad.

The 1d20 + 1/2 lvl is really only slightly more simple than 1d20 + skill ranks / bab / save. And, it sacrifices character customization in preference for making everyone cookie cutter characters of each other. For many people, this isn't simpler enough to justify the reduction in what has become one of the main differences between table top rpgs and mmorpgs.

Narf the Mouse wrote:That is still exactly how the hobby started - And I'm not sure what the lack of non-evil dragons has to do with that.

Teaching my younger brother many years ago to play, the good/evil dragons were what attracted him. Think to most fantasy dragon movies, you have good ones, or good ones vs evil ones. Not many stories just about the evil dragon unless you go to fairy tales. In terms of game play, it means nothing really, but in terms of expectations, I think that it can mean quite a fair bit.

one lvl barbarian, rest lvl wizard. Str 20, int 18. Spell book in one hand, greataxe in other.I mean really? Is there a better half orc?